Mission accomplished. Rory Kirwan, one of the longest-serving and best-known figures in the MDF world has retired as managing director and vice-president of Weyerhaeuser Europe.
He leaves “one of the most innovative wood-based panel organisations in Europe in great shape”. The whole production activity in each of the three manufacturing plants has been completely overhauled, and a good deal of new plant has been introduced. Besides this, the organisation owns three of Europe’s strongest brands: Medite, Mediland and Darbo.
Rory Kirwan’s decision to retire coincides with a natural break in the development of Weyerhaeuser‘s European composite panel business. “Our overall investment programme is complete,” he said. “All our existing facilities are nearing optimum operating efficiencies and we have successfully marketed and sold the incremental volumes.”
Furthermore, he said, the integration of what was previously Willamette Europe (and, before that, Medite of Europe) with Weyerhaeuser, one of the world’s largest forest products companies, is complete.
Twenty years’ work
For Rory Kirwan it represents the culmination of more than 20 years’ work; he began with Medite of Europe in 1983. Medite had just set up its manufacturing facility producing MDF, a product that was not at first fully accepted. However, Mr Kirwan, who began in technical market support but became managing director within seven years, reckons any suspicions surrounding the product were shortlived.
Medite, a pioneer in MDF development, especially in speciality versions, was a highly successful player in an industry that for years experienced growth rates from 15-18%. Between 1983 and 1992 European production rose from 188,000m3 to nearly 2.5 million m3.
It meant that virtually every stick of MDF was being pre-sold – that is, until a host of new MDF plants came on stream. The result was massive overcapacity – at some stages up to 50% – and a price bloodbath. MDF saved itself. Its seemingly unstoppable march into an increasing number of new applications among an extending variety of industries helped put the sector back on an even keel.
Today MDF’s annual growth rate is closer to 8%, handsome enough but more manageable, and Mr Kirwan expects that growth to continue at least until 2010. “After that it is difficult to predict,” he said. In Europe, MDF currently accounts for 20% of overall wood-based panel industry production and last year total output topped 11 million m3.
Technical development
Mr Kirwan has no doubt that the technical development of MDF will continue as nobody in today’s wood-based panels industry can afford to rest on their laurels. A recent major Weyerhaeuser introduction has been lighter-weight standard MDF, at first by Mediland and, last year by the Medite plant in Clonmel. Its key properties are “easier handling, reduced cutter wear and lower transport costs”.
“It makes MDF an even more friendly and convenient product,” said Mr Kirwan.
Overall he believes MDF will continue to flourish thanks to its advantages of diversity of application and, stemming from a widespread use of wood waste and sawmill residues, its environmental acceptability.
Another reason for Mr Kirwan’s optimism is that there is also a burgeoning DIY consumer market exploring the possibilities of standard MDF – with the potential of other variants, like exterior, moisture-resistant, even flame-retardant, still to be explored.
He also believes new national markets remain to be tapped in Europe, mainly in the east, where MDF has yet to achieve its full potential. It is something that “a mixture of marketing and a higher quality product” should put right.
Mr Kirwan’s more than two decades in the wood-based panels industry have been highly rewarding, with each year bringing “something different”. In the last 13 years, particularly, he has overseen a period of major growth and development. A business that consisted of one 150,000m3 MDF line, has grown into two MDF plants, one in Ireland, the other in France, plus a French particleboard operation, that together produce around one million m3 of wood-based panels a year.
But Mr Kirwan concluded that the establishment of Medite and Mediland MDF and Darbo particleboard as quality brands is essentially down to the people working for Weyerhaeuser. “I have been fortunate to have an outstanding team of professionals as my colleagues,” he said. “Without them little of our success could have been achieved. With them the future is assured.”
